Former Conservative Party leader Michael Howard has dismissed John Redwood, chair of the party’s official Economic Competitiveness Policy Group, as not reflecting the mainstream views of the party in a radio appearance.
The criticism came on the BBC Radio 4’s Week in Westminster at the weekend when former Labour minister Patricia Hewitt raised the question of the Conservative policy review, chaired by John Redwood, that called for deregulation of the mortgage market:
Patricia Hewitt: John Redwood and this economic policy commission has only, what, in the last month or two said, ‘Let’s deregulate the mortgage market’.
Michael Howard: And there are people in your party who still believe in full-blooded nationalisation. So of course there are people in all three of our parties who don’t reflect the mainstream view of the party.
The review was in fact published last year, saying:
Mortgage Regulation: We see no need to continue to regulate the provision of mortgage finance, as it is the lending institutions rather than the client taking the risk.
Given the number of occasions taxpayers in the UK and other countries have since had to bail out institutions laid low by their mortgage policies, it’s perhaps no surprise that some Conservatives want to distance themselves from the views of John Redwood and their own party’s policy commission. But the policy review was set up by David Cameron, and George Osborne gave advice on the writing and presentation of the report.
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4 Comments
Much as I loathe Howard, he has a point. You will always get extremists in every party in a political system, like FPTP, which gives power to the party which can appeal to the broadest cross section. The extremists – at least those with a modicum of intelligence – join mainstream parties and campaign within them to promote their crazy views. (Those without that modicum join extremist parties, and come fifth or sixth in every seat they contest.) Redwood is clever, but not clever enough.
Michael Howard does have a general point that all parties are broad churches, but it seems a bit rich to try that on about an MP invited by a party leader to produce a policy document.
I seem to remember that the Liberal Democrats were enthusiasts for deregulation as well until recently. Thankfully that is no longer the case.
One wonders what is going on behind closed doors in the Tory party…